Organizations often require access control and/or authentication for access to applications, and sometimes use one or more of a multitude of security mechanisms, such as firewalls, to achieve this. Unfortunately, remote user access, particularly with respect to cloud-based applications, can create uncertainty for organizations as to whether users are accessing applications through such security mechanisms.
To prevent users from bypassing security measures when accessing applications directly, organizations often do not share user credentials for authentication, but instead provide users with access to applications in other ways, such as through virtual private networks (VPNs) or Proxy servers (cloud or on-premise). While these methods may provide a greater degree of control, they can also be cumbersome for implementation and result in high bandwidth consumption. Network activity of remote users for example must be routed both in and out of the network for accesses to remote applications, services, and/or resources. Consequently, organizations utilizing VPNs or regular proxies often are forced to either settle for compromised network efficiency or invest in higher capacity network infrastructure.